Making enough money to pay all the bills and meet your standard of living is one part of that. But another is whether you and your spouse have the same philosophy when it comes to spending your hard-earned cash.

Leener3 tells of the undoing of a friend's relationship over this very issue. She's a tightwad, he's a spendthrift.

"She dreads December 24. Every single year he ends up making huge impulse buys they can not afford because it is the day before Christmas and he wants to make it the best Christmas ever. I have been her friend for 10 years and I can not tell you the last time they had a nice Christmas. They end up in a huge fight every single year. She has tried everything to modify the behavior (both his and her reaction to it) but he is sending them into bankruptcy. I could not live like that."